


Loyalty Lay Down, Heart Bared

by Blueper



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-16
Updated: 2017-09-16
Packaged: 2018-12-30 12:25:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12108681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blueper/pseuds/Blueper
Summary: "He held his automatic to my little headand recited a poem about my many weaknessesfor which I loved him so."-Edward Taylor, "Loyalty"





	Loyalty Lay Down, Heart Bared

He can't hear anything. He's in the middle of a goddamn firefight in an abandoned city and he can't hear a single thing. The smoke surrounding his position isn't helping much with re-orienting himself either.

Lance hadn't felt it when the laser blast (shrapnel included, all for a low price of your physical and possibly mental health) hit him in the chest, knocking him onto his back, where he's lying like a crab that can't get up. The only difference, he thinks, is that crabs' shells don't break that easily. Also, no one tries to shoot crabs. Generally speaking.

What he had felt, however, was Keith's eyes on him. What emotion is burning in them right now? Shock? Anger? He refuses to even think that it could be sadness, or regret. He doesn't have time for that. In fact, none of the team does. They have to get that data out of one very, very specific core (as Pidge took three hours to stress-rant about yesterday) in order to further their plans of rescuing Sam and Matt. Lance isn't going to risk the mission for the sake of emotions. Heck, it was one blast. Lance has taken worse before. He rolls onto his stomach, gritting his teeth.

Alright, so it is very much, extremely possible that that was a bad move. He can feel the shrapnel being shoved further into his body. Some of it had dug its way under his armor, entrenching itself in the muscle in his chest, near his shoulder and quiznak, that hurt. He pushes himself up onto his elbows and hooks his fingers around his bayard, performing an army crawl that would have made even Iverson proud.

He keeps his head low, behind a rather convenient outcrop of rubble, and stumbles upon an abandoned building, almost reduced to two barely standing walls and part of a ceiling at this point. He drags himself inside, takes cover in a corner and decides to take inventory. All of his limbs are still attached. He doesn't have brain matter splattering out his head, so that's a plus. Now, the team.

There's a garbled shouting coming through his comms, and he can tell that Hunk and Allura are trying to check if he's alright, but either the comms are scrambled, or his ears are. He's willing to put GACs on his ears being scrambled, but he might as well make an effort to tell them he's ok. He reaches up shakily to fumble with his helmet, his arm screaming with the effort. Lance bites his lip, though, and presses onwards.

With some static, his comms flicker back to life. Lance coughs, rasps into the comms, "Hey, guys?"

He's promptly greeted with several cries of relief, and is immediately filled with a warm sense of belonging… or that might just be the blood starting to leak out around his injuries into his armor, but who's checking.

Lance coughs again. "Right, I got hit. Nothing too bad, but I'm gonna just… hole up here for a bit, I think. Hopefully they-" and here he pauses, because he swears there was something there just now, "-they think I'm down and out for the count. I'll… meet up with you guys later, try to pick off anyone… going after you. Just let me know… when the data extraction's… complete." He's met with acknowledgements, however faint, by the rest of the team. Keith is yelling into his comm, something about coming to get him, but Lance isn't listening. By the end of the little speech he just gave, Lance is wheezing, which is confusing, because he was perfectly fine all of 30 seconds ago. Maybe he's more injured than he thought? Hopefully he won't have to talk much after this. Just prop his bayard up and fire- Wait. There. Another movement.

He shifts a little, cradling his bayard closer to his chest and raising it. If he's being ambushed, he's at least going to take down someone with him, even if his weapon is currently a sniper rifle. He isn't really in the right state of mind to try changing it back to an energy rifle right now, anyway. The gravel under his butt crackles annoyingly as his body weight shifts without his permission. He's trembling, but he forces himself to listen. Where is it? Where-

A faint puff of dust on the right catches Lance's eye and he swivels toward it, ignoring the screaming pain in his chest. He remains completely still, straining-

There's a crunch to his left and he whips around, panic overtaking the pain, but it's too late. The last thing he sees- blue and yellow eyes, magenta-

Black.

* * *

Ezor dumps the Red Paladin on an examination table, the one farthest from the sliding doors. She probably could have been a bit gentler on him, but to be fair, getting him all the way back to the ship had been a bit of a hassle- she could have sworn that the Black Paladin could smell her, the way he was acting. Even with camouflage, the Red Paladin's body floating along would have given them away, since humans (and what a queer word, hew-muns) couldn't float or levitate. She was tempted to grab Black too, but no, her orders were to take the Red Paladin only, and she would have been slowed down with two bodies to lug around.

Lotor had explained his plans to them when Zethrid had questioned why they couldn't just kill the Paladins, or at least take all of them prisoner. The Red Paladin, he explained, seemed to be the support of the team, even though the role's traditional requirements were to act as the right hand of Voltron. In many cases, this meant that the Red Paladin was in the thick of the fighting. However, out of the Lions, the Red Paladin always seemed to distance themselves the most from the other Paladins- many good Galra soldiers had fallen to that pesky sniper rifle of his. Furthermore, Lotor had explained, upon questioning those who had survived the various battles with Voltron, the Red Paladin's fighting style resembled that of the Blue Paladin's. He'd double-checked and triple-checked, and the four of them trusted Lotor implicitly.

Additionally, since the Champion had been retaken, found in his black Paladin armor, it had only been reasonable that either the remaining paladins had replaced him or shifted themselves around. According to Prince Lotor, the kitties chose their Paladins. There could only be so many candidates available in the universe on such short notice.

At any rate, Ezor is a little bit bored, and she wants to hang out in the sauna for a bit, so she straps the Red Paladin down without much fanfare, removing his helmet swiftly and carefully in the process. One of the perks of not being covered in fur is being able to enjoy a nice stay in a sauna without overheating.

Also, if she really hoofs it, she might be able to beat Acxa and Narti there. Zethrid doesn't like hanging out in there because of her ears, but Ezor will definitely get her to join for some girl bonding this time!

* * *

 Lance wakes up without a sound. Nothing but pained huffs of breath and the frantic flickering of his eyes give any indication that he is conscious. Instead, his heart is racing faster than the Red Lion can fly- it feels like it's about to leap out of his chest. He can't breathe. He can't-

Ok, he thinks to himself, ok, you need to calm down. He tries some of those breathing exercises he learned back on Earth, all of which have been extremely useful in the past, but right now, slowly clenching and unclenching his fist until he feels better isn't gonna cut it.

He closes his eyes. Quiznak, his shoulder hurts. How long has he been here? Is everyone ok?

As the adrenaline flowing through his body slows down gradually, as unlikely as he thought it would be, Lance takes the opportunity to scan his surroundings, or at least, however much of it he can see from his position. Well, he can still feel all his limbs and appendages, which all happen to be strapped down to this weird table. His helmet is gone- probably taken by whoever had put him here- and his armor is still mostly on, thankfully. His head is pounding like there's a tiny person trapped in his skull, hammering away, and his mouth tastes like ass, but that's not super surprising. God, what wouldn't he give for a drink of water-

The sliding of a door instinctively causes him to freeze. Should he act like he's still sleeping? No, most likely there are cameras in this room watching him. They - whoever 'they' is - probably knows exactly what he's been doing in this room the whole time. Lance steels his face into his best unaffected expression, refusing to crane his neck to see who's approaching.

There's a few pairs of footsteps. Lance thinks there might be… three people? Maybe four. Maybe it's one person with eight legs. These are aliens he's dealing with, after all.

He catches a flash of white - purple? - but stubbornly remains looking at the ceiling. He's not going to give up any information, no matter what they do to him, no matter who they bring out. He's not- he's not-

God, what if they do him what they did to Shiro?

Lance has never exactly inquired into the specifics of what happened during Shiro's time as a prisoner of the Galra empire, considering it's a sensitive subject for him, but right now, he's wishing he'd researched a little bit more about the Galra did to prisoners. It would be nice to know what's coming, so he could at least pretend he could take torture.

Everyone reads about torture in books, sees it played out in movies, but Lance honestly doesn't think he could survive an actual torture session. Ribs broken? Sure, no problem. Pop him in the pod and he'll be good as new in a couple ticks. Bleeding out from a multitude of cuts? Slap some bandages on there, and he'll be back at it in no time.

But prolonged, extensive pain caused by instruments clearly designed to cause pain without killing, wielded by someone who knows how to use them?

Hahaha. Nope. Lance can try lying to himself all he wants, but he knows his limits. _Acutely_.

Nothing's actually happened yet, though, so maybe Lance can retain that small bit of hope that is trying to convince the rest of him that he's going to be ok. The more rational part of his brain is trying to wrestle the bit of hope down from whatever high it's on because it's probably not a good idea to get his hopes up.

By nothing, Lance actually means nothing. He can feel the presence of someone standing behind him, near the top of his head, but Lance can't actually see them in his peripheral vision. As for the others, Lance thinks they've remained near the door, but he can sense eyes on him.

It seems like an eternity before the person behind him speaks, even though it couldn't have been more than a few minutes. The masculine-sounding voice is low and smooth, and Lance startles a little bit, holding his breath.

"Haven't you gotten yourself in a little too much trouble this time, Red Paladin?"

The figure, which had previously been purposely remaining out of his field of vision, moves closer to him, leaning over to stare directly into his eyes.

The first thing Lance thinks is "pretty". The second is "purple". The third is "quiznak, I just thought my kidnapper was pretty".

To be fair, the man's facial features are rather striking- his eyes draw Lance's attention immediately. His sclera are yellow, but his irides are a gorgeous- and Lance means [i]gorgeous[/i] - bright blue. He has high cheekbones, pointed ears, and a sharp chin, and despite the purple skin color, the man's white hair, long and flowing, reminds him distinctly of Legolas from the Lord of the Rings movies.

Lance shakes himself out of his stupor almost immediately. There is absolutely no reason why he should be thinking about a fictional elf right now when he is here, probably about to be tortured and killed by… hold on.

The purple… reminds him of something. Lance racks his brain, trying to remember exactly what. His headache isn't helping though, so Lance gives up and tries to respond, getting a little distracted when he sees the smirk on the man's extremely dashing face.

"Did you kidnap me?" Lance asks, his voice cracking, much to his chagrin. "Who are you?"

Okay, not the most brilliant question, but in his defense, he's injured, disoriented, and in a strange place with strange people. He has a right to know!

Purple Legolas smiles, leans close, and says, practically purring, "We rescued you, Red Paladin. I am Prince Lotor."

Lance blanches. He can feel his eyesight going fuzzy. _The_  Prince Lotor, the one that's been toying around with them this whole time and almost got them all killed on that one gas planet… is a very attractive man? Lance knows he shouldn't subscribe to the whole "villains are always ugly" schtick, but somehow he didn't expect that their newest enemy, Zarkon's son, would be this… pleasing to the eye.

"I assume that your injuries must be hurting?" Lotor asks, face taking on a mask of polite concern. "We can treat it for you, if you'd like."

Lance doesn't hesitate to drop his awfully held-together attempt at neutral indifference, eyes going wide and teeth baring.

"I'm not taking anything from you, you… you…" Lance can't think of any insults that could sting Lotor enough right now, so he closes his eyes and tries not to focus on the pain in his head and shoulder. "No."

Lotor shakes his head, as if he was reprimanding a small child. "I would be careful if I were you, Red Paladin. Leaving such an injury unchecked could lead to… further complications."

Lance can imagine, but he also doesn't want to be drugged up to the eyeballs in the event that an escape is possible. God, Lotor. Prince Lotor of the Galra Empire kidnapped him. What even is his life? Lance tries to speak again, but Prince Lotor presses one finger against his mouth and says, "Don't try to fight it, Red. You will be of no use to anyone with such a wound."

Lance almost bites the finger off, the words "I'm no use to anyone anyway" on the tip of his tongue. Instead he just glares until Lotor removes the finger, looking at someone standing by the door. These footsteps are quiet. There is no voice.

Lotor pats his hair lightly before leaving, the sliding door's hiss sounding like eternal doom. It doesn't seem like the person working with him - working _on_ him - is inclined to speaking. Somehow that makes it worse, knowing that this entire thing is going to be kept in silence, without him knowing what's going on.

Fingers press into his right arm, not gently, but not to hurt, either, and Lance feels the pinch of a needle. He looks over. It's some person in a hood, with a cat standing on their shoulders. Is that even sanitary? He bets it isn't.

He licks his lips. "So, uh, what exactly are you putting in me right now? Is it drugs, cause, uh, I don't really like drugs?"

The figure doesn't respond. No surprise there.

He can hear the sound of a switch being flipped, and something begins dripping down the tube into his veins. He wants to rip out that stupid needle and get out of here, but the restraints aren't really helping with that. God, if Keith were here-

No. Even if Keith had been the one captured, thinking about what the Black Paladin would have done wouldn't help him in this case. Keith had a vastly different (and probably larger) skillset from Lance. Lance's best bet was probably going to be to bide his time and wait for the right chance to escape. If anything, maybe one of the Galra soldiers would inadvertently slip up and give him some intel to take back to the Castle. Maybe a Blade of Marmora member could help him escape, despite all the risks.

Maybe…

His eyes slip shut again. He's out like a light.

* * *

Narti works carefully on the Red Paladin's shoulder, Kova slinking down onto the table to give her a better look at the injury. It looks bad, but it's nothing a bit of quintessence and some time won't heal. Her movements are practiced and she hardly thinks about what she's doing as she works, even though the human's body is much different from what she is used to.

No, what her mind is on is Prince Lotor's command to keep the Red Paladin clear-headed, rather than under her control at least for the time being. Her prince seems inclined to think that their prisoner is more useful like that. Narti is inclined to disagree, but her loyalty to her savior will always trump any doubts she has about his decisions.

At any rate, what Ezor had chirped earlier is true: "He's just one of the Paladins, and any one of us can take him on. If I kidnapped him so easily, there's no way he'll be able to escape!"

Narti had been the only one to notice Lotor's neutral expression between Zethrid's fearsome grin and Ezor's giggling before she and Kova were dragged off to the sauna. She didn't know what it meant, but he was probably three steps ahead of the others, as always.

She picks another splinter out of the Paladin's chest, then pauses. Kova pads over to the Red Paladin's face for a moment, batting at the marred and dirty skin with one paw. His face wasn't too shabby looking. Even Narti could see the appeal that keeping the Paladin whole and healthy might have. Were all of the Paladins as pleasing to the eye as this one?

When Kova returns, brought back to task by a gentle nudge to his mind, Narti continues. This is something she can do, even with her lack of sight, thanks to Kova. Being unable to see or speak was… hard, at times, but even so, Lotor had taken her in and raised her up. She would not fail in her duty to serve him.

The gentle clink of metal in the tray by her side continues for a long time.

 

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is my first fanfiction! I hope it read ok, and that any errors about the background didn't take away from the story.
> 
> Confession: I've never actually watched any of the Voltron episodes, except for part of the first one. Everything I know is due to piecing together tidbits online and fanfiction. Unfortunately, I just haven't had the time to watch any of the episodes. However, please rest assured that I am a steadfast part of the Voltron fandom. I have faith that we'll be able to get over our differences!
> 
> Also, please excuse any late updates! My schedule is rather erratic, so I don't know exactly when I'll be able to post. 
> 
> Anyway, hope you enjoyed it! Please look forward to reading the next installment... well, I don't know when.


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